I saw a post in LinkedIn that referred to a podcast titled “How to Work Smarter”  where my friend Heather Abbot, Deputy Registrar, Yale Law School, discusses what she does to work smarter. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for some pointers.

This led me to think about some of what I do and I thought I would share them here. I should say that what I am describing below is something that has evolved over several years during which I constantly keep tweaking what I do. And I pick up ideas from various sources and if I find them applicable to me I do them. There is no single book or philosophy I can point to… I also realize that the fact that this works for me may not work for others.

Email

I have my College email and personal email, both in Google, so I have a single platform that I use. They are open in different tabs. My personal Gmail volume has gone so low that it is amazing. It is because my personal contacts have moved on to other communication channels.

I live and breathe emails. And here are some things I do:

• I use the “categories” setting in Gmail that groups emails into Forums, Updates, Promotions and Inbox. This is very useful for my style than other possibilities such as Priority Inbox. My focus is always on Inbox, but I do check Updates and Forums based on subject lines that appear in the tab.
• I do have my College Gmail open in two tabs in Chrome in my Mac, so that it is easy to use one of them to search for information while I am composing email in the other.
• I quickly scan my email and if it is something I can respond to quick, I do it right away. Sometimes, it is easier and quicker for me to dictate my answer via my phone’s audio interface than typing.
• If it requires further research or consultation with others, I “park” it. Most of the time I use “Add to Task” and I have it added to my Calendar so I it is visible. Sometimes, I add a date and time in task, but mostly it is there to remind me to respond. I also have it appear on the right hand side of one of my GMail windows, so it is on my face. The issue with this is, by default, it is saved with the Subject of the email and I need to click on the email to know more. If it is ambiguous subject, I edit the title in tasks in a way I know what this is about.
• In other cases I “Snooze” the email with a particular date and time. I used to do this a lot, but I am increasingly moving to “Add to Task” because it is less clicks/swipes.
• I used to send emails at all sorts of times to my staff that didn’t go well. Some years ago I heard this and I used to save emails during after hours and weekends in Drafts, but I would forget about them. Scheduled Send is a huge savior. I use this to avoid sending emails that I have time to compose, but not important to send immediately.
• Also, I know the recipients well enough to choose to communicate with them appropriately. Some don’t mind communicating in the evenings, so they send me emails at odd hours and I don’t feel bad responding 🙂
• I prioritize responding to items based on who it is from and the content. One faculty member always asks how am I able to answer him so quick every time and I would joke “I have an AI system that actually responds to your emails”. I take a lot of pride in being responsive regardless of who is at the other end.
• I am brutal about deleting emails. I delete things that I do not feel need my involvement or has no value keeping them.
• At the risk of being rude, sometimes I avoid one on one emails and include relevant parties in the same email. Person A will write to me separately about topics that will benefit from including B and C (no idea why). But then my response will be shared by A to B and C. Why? So, I include B and C in my response. If I find some content is irrelevant or inappropriate, I delete them before responding.
• I also have a limit of no more than 3 responses from me to the same subject after which it is time to meet or talk. I am actually slipping on this a bit and need to get back to holding my line.
• I receive a monthly report from EMail Meter that I pay keen attention to. One metric is how quickly I respond to emails and the other is the volume of emails during non-work hours and with whom I am engaged in those conversations. I use these to try to tweak my behavior. It is a great analytic tool.

Other Channels

I use Google Chat, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram most actively. I also receive a fair amount of text messages. I have an Android Phone and have switched to Android Messages. The great thing about this is that I now have ALL these apps both on my phone and on my Mac, so whichever device I am on becomes the one through which I communicate. I can send and receive text from my Mac if this is where I am working or view those silly vidoes of read the stupid jokes that my contacts forward to me on WhatsApp. This way, if I am participating in a meeting and can afford to multitask, I get notified of all these channel communications and I can attend to them on the same device, and I don’t need a second device.

I am still connected with some folks on Slack, so I use that sparingly.

I am trying very hard to move to Google chat for many of the items we discuss using emails. It is a much more efficient way for certain things. But communication choices and change of behavior is something requires collaboration from others. For example, I have created a “room” for some of us in Google chat. I would post something there and won’t see any responses. Then I need to send everyone an email to remind them to go there!

I just need the Netflix App to be surrounded by small notification windows for each of my channels when I am watching something in full screen mode… I know, I know… thats me, folks!